Photo Editing

I haven't posted anything in a while because I've been knee-deep in photo editing. Not anything fun or brilliant, just the "make this photo look decent" editing. My D80, constantly overexposes and has some odd color shifts. Since I started in film photography, I was never a big believer in post-shooting editing. There were hours spent in the lab dodging and burning by waving my hands or a piece of cardboard in front of the image being exposed (gasp, photo developing secrets revealed) which were very frustrating. So I prefer a nicely exposed shot - just like everyone else. Recently I have turned to photoshop out of necessity, or perhaps desperation. I feel like I am lacking eye to camera coordination and that my camera won't understand me(I have been told I should love it more, maybe then it would behave). I need to find some fellow frustrated D80 users for tips, or just go back to shooting film.

Here's what I'm talking about. The before shot is actually above average for my camera, as it is shot with my 50mm. Aside for the trashcans and bathroom signs, which somehow always show up in shots these days, the image is terrible: faded colors, washed out sky, and a most shocking the neon red in the upper right. So I have to get to work and make it look the way it did in real life, the way I saw it. Not a vibrant enhanced shot, just a decent one. These days with digital photography the quantity of images is ridiculous, and I should probably only keep 5 images from a trip, but lately I've seen some lovely places and am trying to end up with some lovely images. This is the extent of my photo-editing, although with most I don't even take out the trashcans.